BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU football opened practice to reporters for the first time this season on Monday. SEC Country made the following observations based on what we saw.

Tyler Shelvin is in the house

Tyler Shelvin, the massive nose tackle from Crowley (La.) Notre Dame High School, practiced with the team for the first time. Shelvin is a partial qualifier who will not be able to play this season, but he is able to practice.

Shelvin missed the first three weeks of training camp awaiting clearance from the NCAA Clearinghouse after taking three correspondence courses this summer.

Monday was the first day of classes at LSU.

Derrius Guice, Arden Key among absentees

Star running back Derrius Guice was not at practice Monday. LSU’s best player on the other side of the ball, Arden Key, also was absent. Key has yet to participate in full-contact drills, but has been able to do individual drills this month as he recovers from offseason shoulder surgery.

Jacob Phillips and Tyler Taylor are enormous humans

The program-listed heights and weights for inside linebackers Jacob Phillips and Tyler Taylor don’t really do them justice. Phillips (6-foot-3, 237 pounds) and Taylor (6-2, 238) look like men among boys despite being the youngest players at the position.

A quick look at the secondary depth chart

Based on position drills, this is the current depth chart in the LSU secondary. Note: These were four-man drills, so the starting nickelback is not taken into account.